The Bank of Canada is counting mostly on consumers to carry the economy on their shoulders this year, but early signs show consumers may have other plans.

Only last week, the central bank said it is counting on “private domestic demand” to provide the majority of the impetus for its forecasted growth in the economy. At the same time, the bank raised its estimate for growth in the economy to 2.4% from 2.2% in 2012, based in part on this improved spending outlook.

“Growth in household expenditures (the combination of consumer spending and residential investment) has picked up in recent quarters, and is expected to continue at a moderate pace through 2014,” the bank said in its Monetary Policy Report, adding that it expects income growth to outpace gains in consumption.

But two key measures of consumer spending and spending intentions showed Tuesday that consumers are in fact pulling back. Retail sales were much slower than expected in February — and revised lower for January — while consumer confidence suddenly fell in April after rising for three straight months.

“This disappointing report completely changes the tracking of first-quarter consumer spending,” Scotia Capital economists Derek Holt and Dov Zigler wrote of the report, which showed retail sales falling for the first time in seven months, down 0.2% to $38.9-billion on a seasonally adjusted basis.

January’s figures were revised down to a gain of 0.2% rather than 0.5% as previously reported.

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“Prior to the report, we were tracking a 2.2% quarter-over-quarter annualized gain,” but with the February figures and the January revision, sales volume is essentially flat, the economists said.

“That means the consumer may have dropped out as a driver of gross domestic product growth in the first quarter at least in terms of retail sales.”

“The consumer is in a cautious frame of mind,” Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in response to the data. “High debt loads, high gas prices and the prospect of higher interest rates suggest that caution will persist.”

That caution was reflected in the Conference Board of Canada’s consumer confidence report for April, which showed confidence levels falling across the country — and consumers growing leery of big-ticket spending.

While Canadians’ attitudes about their current financial situations were largely unchanged, the balance of opinion on where their finances will be in six months is “at its second-lowest since spring 2009,” the Conference Board said. Similarly, negative attitudes about future employment prospects are at their lowest point in more than two years.

“Given their current pessimism when it comes to their finances and jobs, it is not surprising that the share of Canadians who consider now a good time to make a major purchase has fallen,” the report said.

Mr. Porter says BMO continues to call for gross domestic product to rise at just more than a 2% annual rate in the first quarter.

“The gain will clearly be driven less by consumer spending than previously suspected, and it also points to downside risk to the Bank of Canada’s 2.5% growth call on the quarter.”

On the other hand, Nathan Janzen, an economist with RBC Economics, said better-than expected wholesale trade data released earlier this month should offset the damage from the retail sales figures, and February’s GDP should grow 0.1%.

“This would leave the monthly production numbers tracking modestly below, but still broadly consistent with, both our and the Bank of Canada’s forecast for GDP growth of 2.5% at an annualized rate in the first quarter of 2012.”